Transparency

I was born
               remembering
time
before time.
                  When people were
                     not yet
people
                and mammals
were not yet
           mammals.
                            When we lived
                  in the water
and even before
we were
                 fish:
                        we were cells,
we were not yet
              cells. We
were ocean.
                              I remember
                   gemstones
                              then. Light
could pass
                through
                   them and through
me—through us.
         Before there was
     skin
          to hold us
together. Before
              we could be injured.
                        Ask me.
I remember
                        our deserts.
                                     Our rocky,
plantless shores.
                    The movement
      of waves, always
                      those waves, and
            later tree ferns,
                        and dragonflies,
    and nurse sharks,
                               swirling
in shallow waters,
eyes open and searching.

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Dana J. Graef is the author of the micro-chapbook Vanishing (tiny wren publishing, 2024). Her creative work has also been published in Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology, Wales Haiku Journal, Rust & Moth, and others. She lives between the rivers and ridges of central Connecticut.